How to Read This Income Report
Every month, we will be sharing our blog’s income in posts like this one. We do this to motivate and inform you. If you’re ready to start a blog of your own, click here and follow the steps to get started.
These reports will include money earned and expenses from the given month. Some affiliate income gets adjusted due to returns, but usually by the end of the month, it’s been worked out. We also take the difference out of the next month’s affiliate income on the next report.
Also, the number you see in the title is our take-home amount after expenses. As opposed to the inflated, before expenses number that 98% of bloggers who do income reports post. Please also note that none of this money is taxed yet. We make monthly payments to the IRS based on our income and tax projections and recommend all bloggers making thousands per month do the same.
Important Happenings This Month
The Nordstrom Anniversary sale had its final few days in August, so that provided a nice boost in affiliate income over our normal numbers. We were so focused on the Anniversary sale and other summer retail promotions that sponsored posts suffered a lot. We generally like to get at least 1-2 on the blog and social media every month.
We saw a nice bump in HostGator commissions, which is likely due to increased traffic to the blog. We have a sidebar ad for our own “How to Start a Blog” page that everyone sees. Another great reason to put ads for your own best content in your sidebar!
Please note this is our first income report. It might surprise you to see that we spent close to $2500 in advertising on Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook. We figured out how much a visit to various pages/posts on our blog earns us and just make sure to pay less than that per click to the blog. Example: on average, we make $1.10 per visitor (in average affiliate earnings) to a blog post and pay $0.75 per click. This means we make a profit of $0.45 per click on our ads. Once you can figure out ads that work to your benefit, the ceiling gets pretty high as far as your potential income.
The Report
The links below are affiliate links. When you click them and make a purchase, we earn money. Thank you so much for all of your support!
BLOGGING REVENUE
- Sponsored Instagram posts – $150
- Retail affiliate income (Nordstrom, Shopbop, Macy’s and other affiliates. We love VigLink) – $14303.23
- Amazon affiliate income – $999.69
- Sponsored blog posts – $0.00
REVENUE EARNED FROM BLOGGING CONTENT
- HostGator (start a blog today!) – $5500
- Studiopress – The only blog themes we recommend – $266.86
- PicMonkey – $25.94
- Aweber – $13.30
Total Revenue – $21,259.02
EXPENSES
- KnownHost – We started with HostGator, but outgrew them after a few years. $55
- Aweber– the best email service for creating, building and managing email lists! – $29
- Social Media Advertising – $2399.55
- Giveaway prizes (this falls under our marketing budget) – $350
- PicMonkey – the best online image creation and editing software – $5.00
- Long Tail Pro – keyword research software that helps us show up better in Google. $25
- Optin Monster – create beautiful optin forms to collect email addresses – $9
- US Global Mail – online PO Box to use with our email service so we don’t have to use our personal address – $10
Total Expenses – $2882.55
TOTAL PROFIT – $18,373.47
Overall this was a fantastic month! Coming off our best month ever, this was a nice follow-up. We’re predicting couple of smaller months leading into the holiday season.
If you’re feeling motivated after reading this income report, head over here to get your blog started right away!